MDedge News reported on Assistant Professor (Clinical) of Pharmacy Practice Brittany Stewart's presentation at the annual meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) in October 2018, when she described results from a pilot study that showed pharmacist-physician collaboration on hypertension management was effective for controlling blood pressure in patients discharged from an urban emergency department.

“Hypertension is the leading risk factor for cardiovascular events and stroke in this country,” Stewart said at the meeting. “The good news is that we’re not trying to figure out how to treat this disease, but the bad news is that we have 50% of people with uncontrolled high blood pressure. Pharmacists are highly accessible in the community in outpatient settings. This is where ED providers can really integrate and work on a team to refer patients for their chronic diseases on an outpatient basis.”